Preserve the Game
by jhalya
Summary: One planet, one hunt, no sanctuary. Once again, they play for blood. PB/Predators 2010 AU.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: This story follows the plot of hayj's "Only fools are enslaved by space and time" and my own collection of one-shots, "Sanctuary". It deals with the lives of the settlers on the Game Planet and those of their children. The story will be focused mainly on the Riddicks and their brood (Jack, Marcus, Richie B. and Zoey) and the Royces (Carolyn Two, Mason and Arianna), but characters introduced either by me or hayj will also be making appearances. This project is something I've been meaning to get to for some time and, as hayj can attest, I'm quite excited about it. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I'm enjoying myself writing it!**

**DISCLAIMER: Predators / Pitch Black AU, which means I own nothing, except what hayj graciously lets me play with. **

* * *

_**The Rapture**_

_**- a prologue -**_

Afterwards, Carolyn could remember everything with striking clarity. It had been a nice warm day, cool enough to have lunch outside, something that didn't happen often in the blistering heat of a Sanctuary mid-day. They'd all been home, Riddick and their kids, ribbing good-naturedly in her yard. But it was Jack who reacted first. She'd been stepping outside, arms laden with food, when he charged for her. For a moment she'd been reminded of a much younger Jack, when it had been just them and his chubby hands around her knees.

Later, she could vividly remember all their faces too. Jack's anguished cry and Riddick's cold stare, a half apology in his silvery eyes as he turned from her and dove for Marcus and Zoey. She could remember Richie B.'s unsmiling face as she waited for Jack's arms to hug her tight and make everything better. But they never came. What did come was a blinding light and in a flash, all her children were gone.

* * *

Isabelle had been arguing with Royce, hating him for not giving up, loving him for not giving up on them, when there was no more _them_. Just Bob outside the window, his head canted low, a stunned Ari in his too tight grip. Her daughter had looked so small and frightened and the last thing Isabelle heard was glass splintering as Royce flew through the window with a growl, before the light came and the pain and then the nothingness of absence.

* * *

Ramona Vargas had her knife between her father's legs and her gun pressed snugly to his temple and was whispering softly to him "If you ever look at me the wrong way again,…" when the world blacked out and then exploded in a million shards of light. Before falling on his considerably shitty ass, Pedro's last coherent thought for the longest time was that he'd been getting too attached to her anyway.

* * *

He'd been arguing with Willie again, when it happened. Out on the cattle field, where grazing three legged beasts were trudging their heavy udders or brandishing their sharp horns to the sun and broken stars of Sanctuary.

"A lame horse is a dead horse, boy, and there's no two way 'bout it!" Willie was spittin' in kinda hard, but Mace paid him no mind, intent as he was on the task Willie found so pointless.

When he straightening himself out, unfurling his staggering height – thank you, Dad – Mason Royce looked like the good Lord's Angel of Vengeance walking this unholy Earth, but the boy had a heart made of sugar and brain made of fluff, Willie had always thought. Which amused Mace. He'd learned early on it was always the quiet ones who made it to the end of the game. People like Willie, with his loud prison tats, and loud mouth and loud personality, they didn't stick around for very long. Monsters in Sanctuary had bigger appetites that the ones lurking in the jungle out there.

"This ain't a horse, Willie, and it ain't dead yet!" Mace remembered having said. The animal in question had nuzzled his hand, and hobbled off, a bright gauze wrapped around one of its hind legs.

"Should be as good as new in a couple of days."

But Mace wouldn't know that. Because as soon as he said it, the light came and took him away.

* * *

Children of the first settlers went missing all over Sanctuary. Bob was gone. And the force field that had kept the jungle at bay for almost twenty years was now the wall enraged parents were banging their fists against.

No one was going anywhere. The trap had been neat and tidy and long in coming.

So long that they had forgotten.

Forgotten that the Hunters always watched.

Always learned.

And came back better for it.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: Carolyn Two, aka Carrie, Royce and Isabelle's eldest**

* * *

**Carolyn Two**

Carolyn Two had been taken in full flight. She'd been running for her sister, for Ari's little body twisted in Bob's alien grasp, when the white flashed before her eyes and she was no longer in her parents house. What she was, was running high on adrenaline and then airborne and then frantically trying to get her chute to open as the ground spiralled to crush her.

She screamed.

The chute mushroomed above her and Carolyn Two struggled vainly to hold on to a coherent thought. Her Father had said...her Father had taught her...warned her that when it happened she would have to...

But she couldn't remember. So, when she hit the ground, she dished the chute and ran.

* * *

_They lie. Most people, even hardasses like your uncle and me, lie. You've just gotta be careful never to lie to yourself. You will run. It's instinct. You may think you're gonna stand your ground and fight, but you'll run like all of hell is after you. And that's good. Be smart about that. Run to high ground. Turn left and right, stick to the edge, then plunge back in. Run fast if you can, let the jungle take you in when you tire. Find water, swim deep, then stop. Stop and listen and assess. And when you do, hit hard and hit fast._

* * *

Del was one of her _**other**_ friends, the ones her Mother went off on in Spanish. A Vargas or a Romero, she couldn't quite remember. They hung out together, her, Del and Big Ramona and some of the other boys and girls of the Vargas Compound. Del's brother had dark devil eyes that had done things to Carolyn Two's head she didn't quite understand. Things that had made Jack angry and Marcus give her a curious and vaguely disappointed look.

_Help me..._

But Del was beyond help. She was pinned to a tree by a heavily ornate double-blade axe, flies swarming around the caked blood.

Carolyn Two took a deep breath and then another and then, with both hands, yanked the axe from Del's body and turned to walk away.

_You still pissed?_

It was choppy and poorly recorded, but it was her Father's voice coming from the dead body on the ground. Carolyn Two gripped the axe harder.

_You still pissed? _, the dead body asked again in her Father's fake voice.

_Yeah, I'm still pissed_, Carrie wanted to say. _You_ _threw me out of a fucking airplane and gave me a shitty chute!_

Instead, all she could manage out loud was a snappy "Fuck you!"

_Fuck you..._

_Fuck you..._

_Fuckyoufuckyoufuckyou..._

* * *

_Carrie, sweet baby girl, I'd like to tell you that you should keep running, till Daddy finds you, but I can't. This is its jungle, its rules. You run, you die. And Daddy may never find you._

* * *

Carolyn Two snapped a vine and drank avidly from the juice inside. Then she twisted the vine into a rope and slung the heavy axe on her back. It dug uncomfortably between her shoulder blades, but the weight was reassuring. It grounded her.

She'd gotten her bearings earlier. The skies looked like Sanctuary, but the topography was all wrong. This was a different jungle. Possibly on a different continent. There was no going home anytime soon. But it was getting dark and they'd tire of the chase in no time.

_Hole up for now, girl_, Carolyn Two thought. _Stay tight_.

She was alone, truly alone. But she wouldn't be for long. And you couldn't count on the company she might be getting. It was too early in the game to ghost her, that much she was sure of. The dead body - _her name was Del, she had a brother - _the axe, golden in the sunlight streaming through the foliage, her Father's voice - _you run, you die_ - it was all an elaborate staging. There would be other tests. This was an experiment.

_No. You're the experiment, Carrie girl. This is just the final trial_.

See if all those years of conditioning paid off. See if she truly was as good as her parents had been.

She needed to stay hydrated. She cut off another vine, swinging the axe, but this time the juice sluiced around the corners of her mouth. She wiped herself clean with a vicious swipe. No place for sloppy. Remember. No fuck ups. There were a lot of things she suddenly needed to remember. But the heavy axe in her hand felt good. Felt familiar. It made her think.

Hole up. Regroup. And then…

* * *

There was movement on her left and Carolyn Two tensed. It wasn't fear. It was panic. All consuming, all encompassing.

_Trust your instincts. If you don't, then trust my instincts. I trained you well. You can do this. You have to. You would never break your Daddy's heart._

Well, her instincts had been dead quiet apparently. Carolyn Two forced herself to breathe. You run, you die. Trust your instincts. Hit hard, hit fast.

The jungle rustled, tightening around her like a wet fist. She could hear it coming, but the panic lessened.

_She could __**hear**__ it coming._

She could hear the low growl of an unhappy animal.

Carolyn Two sprang sideways just as a family of hogs came charging in, then dove for the bushes, leaving behind a blazing trail of pig shit.

Water hogs, her Father called them. Fat little animals with a mean chomp and a terrible disposition. But where there are hogs, there's bound to be a watering hole, so Carolyn Two darted after them, ducking and crawling through tangled vines and deep green jungle growth. Using the axe as a machete might have been easier, but she wanted to leave no trail. The hogs were fast, but all Carolyn Two had to do was follow her nose and she stayed on track. With a bit of luck, the overpowering stench of pig shit and hog musk would provide some camouflage till she did what she had to do. Whatever that was.

* * *

The watering hole was more of a pond really, but Carolyn Two had never been more eager for a roll in the mud. The hog daddy snarled menacingly at her, but she growled back. Any other day he'd be roasting over a fire.

Fire. Like the ones she used to light up with Jack back home. Carolyn Two hesitated. It was a little catch, a tremor in her hand as she reached for another clump of mud, but she knew it could mean her death. She was no longer home. No Mom and Dad to have your back. No Jack. No body. She couldn't think about home, because she'd never been alone there. She was alone here. On her own, like she'd never been before.

_You survive. You keep going. That's all. _

Suddenly, Carolyn Two felt good. Despite the mud covering her, hiding her heat signature, she felt clean. Unburdened. There was a thought lingering there, but she'd get to it later.

* * *

Her Mother had been to all the jungles of Old Earth. She always said _You've got to get a feel of the jungle. The trees, the plants. They'll take you in or fuck you over. This is its jungle, its rules. But you've been here all your life, nena. This is your jungle now. _

Well, this jungle was singing sweet lullabies to her. Darkness crept into it and as the last rays of light glittered fleetingly across the surface of the pond, Carolyn Two knew what she had to do. Night time would bring all sorts of animals to the watering hole. If anything bigger and meaner were to show up, they'd sound all the alarms and high-tail it out of there before the first plasma bolt was shot.

Good. Once she was satisfied the perimeter was safe, Carolyn Two got down to work.

* * *

_A jungle is a cage, nena. Look up and you'll see them, following your every move. Look down. Deep down. There's another world down there. They don't know it. And they can't see it._

* * *

Carolyn Two dug herself a hole in the under growth. It was a damp and cramped little world her Mother had shown her. A good place for a sniper's daughter to hide. And think.

She thought of her brothers, Mace and his gentle heart and Ari, _please, please, a gun, that's all she needs._ She thought of never seeing them again and fear started worming into her bones, along with the damp.

_Be smart, Carrie, don't let it get to you. They're counting on that_.

They had flushed her out, forcing her into a corner, knowing that isolation would be more crippling to Carolyn Two than any physical blow. They had given themselves an advantage, but the next move would be hers.

Rest, think.

Don't think of home.

You're on your own.

Hit hard.

Hit fast.

But as she drifted to sleep, her brothers' faces slipping away, the lingering thought from earlier teased her eyes open to the bit of night time she could see through the foliage she'd covered herself with.

It was Marcus she could see clearly in the dark.

Marcus who'd loved her.

Marcus who'd killed for her, that night long ago.

Marcus, who'd hunted alone all his life.

It was only an image her tired mind had conjured up and suddenly, she could feel her heart swell and her breathing even out, a brief moment of peace as she passed out.

Marcus.

Yeah.

They did not know who they were fucking with.

* * *

**A/N: Hayj, redeeming enough for you? Well, because I'm awesome, and you're awesome, and together we're the awesomest, you get to pick the next POV.**


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: Jack is Carolyn and Riddick's oldest son. And this is his chapter. Welcome to _Jack is / was / had always been... _in close to 4000 words. God, I hate my brain.  
**

**DISCLAIMER: No profit. Just pain. **

* * *

**Jack **

He was taught to be observant so he observed.

Five chutes that would land in his vicinity.

Three single drops and two cages floating down to the jungle below.

_First thing first. Don't get dead landing this shit,_ Jack thought trying to manoeuvre the chute to his advantage. Chances were he'd be landing smack in the middle of the fight. He'd be damned if he missed on any of it now that he was here. But that depended on how well he was on the rebound once he hit the ground.

Jack Riddick had woken up in free fall. Not that he'd been surprised. It had been the suddenly too warm to breath air in his mother's yard and his father's tense shoulders. Richie. B.'s soft curse and his brothers' s silence. Yeah. Finally, the Hunt he'd been prepped for all his life was on.

Inanely, right before he touched warm jungle ground, he thought it took them damn well long enough.

* * *

Jack was a tidy man.

Always had been, to the mortification of his younger sister, who was notoriously messy.

_You're such a girl, Jackie Boy! _Zoey had ridiculed him almost since she could walk and talk.

_And what are you, Zoey Bug? _He'd ask, eyeing the chaos neatly confined to Zoey's half of the room she shared with Richie B.

_Superior._

Well, superior was what Jack needed to be now. As he folded the chute and hid it underneath a patch of foliage, ever mindful of his surroundings, he did a quick mental check of what he had going for him. The _ulaks_ his Father had given him on a long ago birthday were strapped on a belt around his waist. Curious. He hadn't been wearing them when he'd been taken. The belt was new and sparsely furnished. A rope loop and a couple of compartments he'd check later.

Right now, tuning in to the rough breathing and loud voices nearby, a blade and a prayer was all he needed.

_I pray you all fucking die, you ugly motherfuckers!_

* * *

Jack had been an all around good guy for most of his life.

Don't hit girls, unless they're your sister and have a murderous intent.

Take care of your Mom.

Watch over your brothers.

That last one had been a laugh though. Most of the time, he didn't want to be watching Marcus doing the things he did, and Richie B. could smile his way out of trouble with a skill he sometimes envied.

_Careful what you wish for, _his Father had once said to him. _You are your own man but wishing for things too strongly may lead you to doing some awfully uncivilised stuff. _

Carrie had broken up with him then and the rage he'd felt towards the devil with the dark eyes and winning smile who'd stolen his girl away had had him lusting for blood. Wanting to rip the other man to pieces and fit his head on a pole for all the world - and Carrie - to see he was lord and master and you did not take things away from him.

But he hadn't, although the need - deep and dark - had nestled cozily inside him.

_Did you see that? With your fucked up vision and weird visors, did you see it, motherfuckers? The monster inside me?_

They had. Because all wrapped up in guns and gore, bashing another man's skull with a rock, Jesse Romero, Del's brother, was making quite a racket in the clearing up ahead.

_One chute down, one to go, _Jack grinned from the shadows.

* * *

Jack had always liked his desserts a bit too much.

He'd lap up his Mother's pies, fruit salads and protein milk shakes like a man savouring his last meal. And savour was what he did. The anticipation, the fulfilment of a craving - for sweets, for women, for a bit of a brawl with his sister - meant nothing to him if he wasn't given time to enjoy it.

_You're an ass, _Carrie used to tell him when he'd hold on to her pleasure, doling it out in small increments that made her angry.

_I'm not an ass. I let Jesse live. But I hate to disappoint. _

Jesse Romero was catching his breath, crunched over his kill, looking for a dead man's loot, as Romeros were want to do, when Jack made his presence known.

"Looking good there, Jess! See you scored your first hit."

At the sound of Jack's words, Jesse sprung up, the bloody rock clutched in his hand. His dark devil eyes looked a bit wild. His face was a study in blood spatter, and the guns he had strapped around him clacked sadly.

He was wearing an arsenal to go and he killed the other guy with a rock.

_How awfully uncivilised_, Jack thought unmercifully.

When he recognised Jack, leaning casually against a giant tree trunk, Jesse broke out in a toothy grin.

"Hold up, would you? Fucker tried to take my gear."

Jesse unclipped a Walter and with a hateful _Final de partida, amigo! _shot the dead man in the face.

The jungle rattled around them, the sound echoing in every vine, leaf and twig.

"So, I guess the gear said no."

"Yeah, man, can you believe it..." Jesse nodded absently, a little shaken by the noise he'd made.

_Yeah, man. You just keep on making mistakes. Make this easier for me._

"You alright there, Jess?"

"Yeah, man, yeah…"

He wasn't. Jess kept looking around for something to hang on to now that the kill rush was fading: a patch of jungle he recognised, a path he could take and go back, except there was no going back anywhere. Ever.

"You knew him?" Jack asked, his eyes fixed on Jesse's kill. He didn't recognise his mark.

But now that he'd ghosted the poor sucker, Jesse wasn't keen on hashing out the details. It sometimes happened.

"Por Dios, cabron! Enough with the fucking questions already! I just fell out of the goddamn fucking sky!"

Jack smiled and said nothing.

Jesse fingered his guns absently, lovingly, seeking comfort.

Jack wondered and managed to imagine in vivid detail the same hands touching Carrie, absently, lovingly, seeking the comfort of a warm youthful body. A warm and youthful body that had belonged to him since forever.

_People change, Jack. They wake up one day and want other things. Not better things, just different, _Carrie had told him.

She was wrong. People didn't change. They just woke up one day and did what was in their nature to do.

Jack straightened and came forward. There was death all around him, there was death watching him and there was death inside him.

Jesse looked Jack in the eye and asked him in his little lost devil voice:

"What's going to happen, man? I mean, fuck, this is not funny anymore, man!"

Had it ever been? Probably. Playing survival games in the jungles near their home was just playing, after all. It had been real for their parents – _for his parents_ at least, because he doubted Jesse's old man had ever seen a hunting Pred. The Vargases and the Romeros had been more of a social experiment.

_A mistake. A big mistake._

Like the one Jack was about to make now.

But he just couldn't help himself.

"I think", Jack said carefully, "it's going to rain."

That made Jesse laugh.

"In the fucking jungle?"

"Yeah", Jack nodded as he drew closer.

Jack was not much taller, but for a moment the other man looked hopelessly small.

"Yeah, Jess. I think it's gonna rain blood", Jack said as, in a lightning fast move, his _ulak_ painted a gushing red ribbon across Jesse's throat.

_This is called an ulak, son. A blade forged in defense of honour._

What about his honour? What about Carrie's honour?

_Let it go, bro. She's made her choice._ Marcus had sounded oddly resigned when they'd talked about the breakup.

What Jack felt now was a deep sense of satisfaction, so he didn't let go. Not even when Jesse, who didn't have the common sense to know he was dying, scrambled for his guns. But the hand with the finger on the trigger didn't stand a chance against Jack's quick reflexes and vise grip.

_Good. Fight me. I'd hate to ghost a defenseless man. _

There were little red blood bubbles forming on Jesse's lips that Jack assumed were a death curse the Romero kid was trying to cast on him, and the steel in his arms trying to point the nozzle towards Jack was a dead man's stiffness and still he put up a fight.

Until Jack, flexing all those muscles Carrie had loved and kissed and caressed, brought the gun in Jesse's hand to Jesse's head and did him the same courtesy the Romero kid had done to his kill earlier.

And the sound was just as loud.

* * *

_Dad, did you really kill people, like… like before?_

_We all killed people. That's why we're here._

_Even Mom?_

_Even Mom._

_But is it true what they say? That…that you did it for…fun?_

_No. But that doesn't make them any less dead. _

* * *

_What are you , Jack?_

_Superior._

Jack knew this wasn't the right answer, but somehow he knew it was the answer the Preds had wanted to see.

What nailed it for him, though, was the fact that the ammo for Jesse's AA-12 and semi-automatic fit perfectly in his utility belt.

He would have laughed, but it wasn't all that funny and he'd made all the noise he could afford.

Jack was planning to booby trap the dead bodies and make a clean getaway when he realised he was being watched. Earlier, he had thought the biggest mistake was killing Jess. But that wasn't so. The biggest mistake was sharply turning to his watcher and his gun and the _pop-pop-pop _of live rounds lodging in his chest.

Before what Jack thought was death settled in, he stared numbly into a pair of silver, shinning eyes.

* * *

Jack had an exceptionally good nose.

_Like your Dad._

If this was hell, it smelled of boots, leather and pissed off female.

"Wake up. If three darts didn't kill you, I ain't wasting ammo to find out what does."

"You. You should've killed me." Jack groaned. The voice had a face, he was sure of it. He just couldn't get a very good lock on it. "Now, will you sit still, please!"

"I am. Here, drink this."

He caught the offering with remarkable ease given he was seeing triple.

It smelled flowery, but he drank it without a second thought.

"Clear up any?"

It did. It also gave the voice an uncompromising looking face and eyes as silver as his Father's.

A blade on her left, a crystal as red as her hair glaring at him from the hilt.

A mechanical shoulder strap on her right, circuits running down her arm to the shotgun in her hand.

Foreign, but not quite alien.

Hurting, if the deep gash on her left cheek was any indication.

"You should see to that. It's gonna get infected."

"It'll heal."

"If you say so."

Newcomers always had their moments of stupid.

The alien woman swallowed hard and geared herself for the inevitable question.

There was a set of them really and Jack had all the answers ready.

"Wherever you come from, this is not-there."

He staggered to his feet and was surprised to see he could stand easily.

"But whatever you did there that earned you your ticket here, it's best you keep on doing it. Don't get dead. That's all you need to know."

"There were…there was a … ahhh…thing…"

"Did you kill it?"

"Yes."

"Good. That's one less _thing_ you gotta worry about."

"Me? What about you?"

Jack was feeling better. They were cocooned in a tanglement of trees, a natural little hideout you usually found in these jungles. She was strong to have dragged a man of his height and weight all the way there, but there were three neat holes in his shirt that were beginning to aggravate him.

"Me?" he mimicked her tone. "You owe me a shirt, but other than that I'm gonna go and do my worrying that way."

"Why?"

"You shot me!"

"No, I mean why that way?"

Jack was speechless for a moment. Truthfully, he had been cruising for a match, a little verbal sparring, but there was so much earnestness in her voice he faltered. There was no trickeration, no guile, she was serious in her need to know.

"Because that's where the other cage landed", Jack answered slowly.

"Good. Then we should get a move on. It's been a while. I killed that…_bug_ before I ran into you and that was _narns _ago."

"Hours?"

Not a smart thing to ask, Jack realised when the woman narrowed her silver eyes at him. Foreign things are scary things and she was packing the superior gear.

"You saw any other chutes?"

Another suspicious once over.

"Things falling from the sky?"

"No. Just us." There was a flash of something in her eyes, a certain loss, but Jack wasn't about to commiserate. She wouldn't have been his first choice for a hunting buddy either.

"There's gonna be more, though", Jack tried to warn her.

The woman nodded.

"Is it going to be night soon?"

"Not for a couple of…errr…_narns._"

She didn't seem to appreciate that.

"We stick to the shadow way, then. No sound. Until darkness comes."

"And then?"

She touched her wounded cheek and winced.

"And then you give me a reason to keep you around."

* * *

Jack was a master of social pleasantries.

That's how he learned her name was Grace. A good name. She was sure footed and silent as she led the way into the shadows of the jungle. The shadow way.

"What is not-there?" she asked in a tight little whisper.

Jack wondered how much pride it cost her to finally come out and admit she wasn't quite sure what was going on.

"My home."

That stopped her in her tracks. Made her reassess. Made her clutch her gun a little tighter.

"You hunt?" Jack brushed past her just in time to see her curt nod. "Well, so do they."

"Skinners."

"Whatever you want to call them. This is a game planet. Hunting grounds. We're being hunted."

"The thing I killed back there. It wasn't a skinner."

"No. It's like a competition. A contest. Survival of the fittest. You're good enough to be here. You've gotta be good enough to make it out of here. And you can only do that if you kill one of them."_ If you kill more of them_, _if you kill all of them, _ but he wasn't going to tell her that. "And you get the chance to do that once you've cleared away the competition."

"Are you competition?"

"I live here. I'm just your local tour guide."

"You killed the other men."

"I killed one other man."

_Just one. _

"A kill is a kill."

"No. A kill is a choice. We all make choices". Hadn't Carrie chosen someone else? "Some of them bad." And yet he didn't feel sorry about Jess, though, intellectually, he knew he probably should.

But Grace took his words to mean something else.

"I don't regret _not _killing you, if that's what you're digging at."

Jack suddenly stopped in his tracks and turned to her.

"Yeah, I've been wondering about that. Why _did_ you let me live?"

Grace smirked:

"'Cause you make a bigger target than me."

Huh.

He should've seen it coming and some part of him - the animal part - was ready for it, but when Grace melted into the shadows of the jungle and the night time darkness that had crept upon them, Jack called himself a fool and hit hard and hit fast.

But the serrated blade of the _ulak _could do only so much damage and the giant bug like creature that unwound its heavy body from the foliage charged ahead. It was sheer dumb luck that Jack managed to dodge in time. He flipped and fired a hail of bullets from Jesse's AA-12, but the creature didn't budge. It just made it angrier.

"Stop running!"

Grace. That rotten…

"It can't see you. But it can smell you. It can smell your anger!"

Jack barked a laughter in response. It was just that stupid.

"It can smell _this_!"

All big bugs, Jack had learned, had a soft sweet spot, some on their belly, some around the head. He took a shot and stuck his _ulak_ underneath the creature's massive jaw. It screeched and flailed its limbs around, but Jack just wasn't fast enough this time. He got pinned by a stinger to a tree trunk and it hurt like seven types of hell.

But the final blow to his ego wasn't the pain in his shoulder and the threat of imminent death, but Grace's swift, lean body climbing on the creature's back and stabbing the creature's head with a long thin silvery sword.

The bug collapsed. Jack's shoulder burned.

Grace sheathed the sword and dismounted.

She grabbed the stinger from where it was poking out of Jack's shoulder and with a vicious pull yanked it out. Smelly black blood oozed out of the wound.

"You immune?"

Jack fell to his knees next to the body of the dead bug.

_Be observant. If it goes circling down the drain, those precious few seconds of lucidity can still make a difference._

He was going into shock. He was numb on his left side, but he fumbled with his good hand, feeling for the compartments in his belt. There had to be...

_Yeah, there always is._

He held the small syringe gun with trembling fingers, willing himself to remember what he was going to do with it. And then do it.

Grace's touch was cool as she took the gun from his hands and threw it away.

_No. No..._

But no words were coming out. Just despair.

"Never trust nothing I can't see." Grace said evenly, slapping his hand away.

She then uncapped the canteen he'd drunk from earlier and liberally poured the liquid in his gaping wound.

She took her gun, adjusted some settings and pressed the nozzle against the angry red skin.

Grace smiled sadly at him.

"This is going to hurt."

_Be observant. Life always hurts. It's only death that's painless. Can't feel anything if you're dead._

Jack slowly, but surely wrapped his fingers around hers where they were curled around the trigger.

There was a twitch, a catch and Jack lived and died a thousands lives as blue tongues of fire discharged into his body.

* * *

Unlike his brothers, Jack had always been a heavy sleeper.

He was particularly cranky upon wakening and nothing short of two healthy cups of his Mom's special brew of what passed for coffee on Sanctuary could make him feel less homicidal.

The sleep he wrenched himself out of now had been sweet. But he wasn't in his bed back home and there was a nasty knot digging into his back. He was clutching an _ulak_ when he finally came to and he remembered he had two, but lost one in his half-assed fight with the bug thingy.

His pride hurt more than his shoulder. It was still throbbing though. He tried moving.

"Sit still. Let it be for a while. You'll be as good as new in the morning."

Grace was sitting across from him, munching on a…

"Is that…the bug?" Jack made a face.

"It's good. Tastes a bit like…well, nothing I can think of, but it's crunchy. Here, have some."

She tossed him…something that looked like…a claw?

Jack made himself take a bite. She was right. It was crunchy. It was also incredibly disgusting.

"You know…" Jack said around a mouthful of bug. "Good choice you made back there."

Grace grinned.

They were sheltered again in one of those natural coves that Grace found so effortlessly in the jungle. Blue flames were dancing along the perimeter she'd set up and the night was deep and strangely restless. Lotsa noises. Animals, insects, nothing like the stillness of the jungles surrounding Sanctuary.

"You told me you were a local, right?" Grace suddenly asked.

"Right."

"Wrong. You are a prisoner here. You've always been a prisoner here."

Jack thought about his mother's yard. About his small little world. And then he looked around to the lush jungle around him, stifling and hot like a leash around his neck. Yeah. He'd been a prisoner all right. And none the wiser for it.

But Grace wasn't finished.

"Well, I ain't nobody's prisoner. I'm getting off this rock and somehow you're going to help me do just that."

Jack laughed. Grace looked a bit insulted, but Jack was quick to reassure her.

"Sorry, sorry. It's just that, right now, you reminded me of my brother."

"You have a brother?"

"I have three."

Grace seemed to mellow a little.

"I'm sorry", she said.

"Don't be." Thinking about his brothers put Jack in a good mood.

"There is no hell in this 'verse like the one my brothers can raise on a good day."

Grace smiled. She had a pleasant smile which transformed her hard set face into something soft and wondrous.

"And on a bad day?"

"On a bad day?" Jack played along. "On a bad day, I just might take my chances with that bug again."

They laughed together. It felt good. Jack wanted to cling to this moment, knowing he'd need it once they'd get their game back on.

"Do you want to see your brothers again, Jack?"

Yes, yes he did.

"I have a brother too. I want to see him again. I _need_ to see him again. I can't fight like this. Ever since we were born, there's been two of us. Always two. A unit. Together we were unbroken."

But she was broken now. The red wound on her cheek, now looking better, but still there, told him everything.

"You need me to fight. Just like you and your brother did."

"Yes. Yes. In return, I will give you your freedom."

Freedom. Jack wondered if that was what he'd always wanted in his life.

It wasn't.

But, in his bones, Jack was a protector. _That_ he could understand. He was the little man of the house. He had a good foundation, strong roots, things his Father didn't quite understand, but learned to accept because they'd been values his Mother had instilled. Looking at Grace now, strong Grace, but broken Grace, he found clarity.

"Don't worry. I'll watch for you out there."

He'd made a buddy.

* * *

**A/N 2 : Hallelujah, this was long! Review?**


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: Here's a quick reminder on the origin of the characters and their story: **_**Sanctuary **_**is the settler camp on the Predators (2010) Game Planet featured in **_**hayj's Only fools…**_** story. It was developed as part of a social experiment by the Predators. The original settlers included Riddick, Carolyn, Royce and Isabelle, Varro – a soldier and his lady love, an innocent and assorted others (which include the Latinos of the Compound, like Ramona Vargas, Dell and Jesse Romero). This story will focus mostly on the children of the first settlers, the Riddicks (Jack, Marcus, Richie B. and Zoey), the Royces (Carolyn Two, Mason and Arianna) and Destiny Varro, who has the honour of being the first child born on **_**Sanctuary.**_

**Now, enjoy!**

* * *

**Big Ramona**

_Help! Help! Somebody help me, please!_

It was a stupid plea. That's the first thing Big Ramona remembered thinking, once the pain in her back dulled down from a roar to a sob no one could hear her make. She'd landed badly, but nothing seemed to be broken and, still, Big Ramona didn't move from her prone position on the bed of the jungle.

_Somebody? Anybody? _

Vargas girls didn't prance around without packing serious fire, so Big Ramona was all set on the front, at least. It was reassuring to feel the dig of her favourite piece in her side, but Big Ramona knew that, if this was the Big H., the real Hunt they'd been reared to take part in, it wouldn't do to show your hand early on. That's how _they_ learnt. And ultimately, that's how _they_ killed.

But today was not the day Big Ramona folded in. So she lay still, played dead, let the sounds of jungle surround her and listened to the incessant and irritatingly familiar wailing.

_You lose it out here, you're in a world of hurt, girl._

* * *

"For God's sake, somebody, get me down!"

Of all of the fucked up things that could've happened to her today, Big Ramona hadn't counted on…_this._ When she'd thought the coast was clear and nothing was coming out to get her, _yet_, Big Ramona had gotten up and followed the sound. It was a trap, yes, but one she could see. _Just like I taught myself to see through all the shit._

Shit like how Vargas kids didn't flock in with the others runts. Because Vargases were different, hell fucking yeah, bigger and better, thank you fucking much, but mostly, _mainly, _because they were afraid.

Afraid of the craziness of the First Settlers, who'd been here for so long.

Afraid of Riddick's crazy fucked up eyes and unreal skills or of Royce – Willing to Sacrifice's stealthy ass.

So, yeah, Big Ramona was not stupid. Settlers had been here for so long and survived while the Vargases and the Romeros of the Compound dwindled in numbers year after year. Big Ramona noticed things like that. She knew she'd have to step up her game, learn some new tricks, kill some new shit, if she wanted to play pro.

But she'd gotten this far, hadn't she?

"Please, just…help!Helphelphelphelp. HEEEEEELLLLP!"

Big Ramona cringed and aimed at the tangled chute attached to a dangling idiot. She cocked her gun and…

"Hey? Is anybody there?"

Well, fuck.

Big Ramona fired the shot.

The bumbling fool fell hard to the ground.

Just as Big Ramona was gearing up to fire a second, rather more final shot, Destiny Varro nimbly bounced back on her feet, the chute billowing behind her like a white shimmering cape. She looked all blond and beautiful and full of stupid.

"Ramona! Thank God it's you! I thought I'd never get down from there!"

Not never, Ramona thought. With the racket she'd been making, they'd shoot her just to make her quiet. Actually, Ramona herself was awfully tempted to…

Destiny's eyes grew large as she eyed the barrel of Ramona's gun.

"There's something behind me, isn't there?" she asked with a controlled kind of seriousness to her voice that made Big Ramona's finger twitch ever so slightly on the trigger.

"Okay, okay. Just…shoot it!"

But Ramona surprised herself by packing away her gun.

"Neah, princess, trick of the light."

Destiny heaved a relieved sigh.

"Phewww! That was close, right?" She straightened herself out, patting dirt off her slacks and flashing Ramona a blinding smile. "Gee, I'm so glad you found me. I hate walking through the jungle alone."

"There were other chutes around. You saw them up in the sky. Alone isn't a luxury we can afford way down here, princess", Ramona growled while doing a quick ammo check. Her trigger finger was still twitching.

"Exactly!" Destiny grinned her perfect white teeth again. "But only two chutes fell in the vicinity. Like I said", and Destiny magically produced a gleaming blade from out of fucking nowhere which she then proceeded on to tapping against Ramona's pert little nose, "I sure am glad I won't be doing this alone".

Destiny turned around, looked up at the chute-less sky and broken planetoids and started towards the thicker part of the jungle.

"Come on, then! Time to go home."

* * *

Big Ramona was bringing up the back, gently toeing the foliage just in case they dropped in something they shouldn't have. The white princess was a couple of paces ahead and Big Ramona had to give it to her: Destiny was tall and fair of hair, hardly inconspicuous against the backdrop of lush greens and multicolored poisonous flowers, but she moved swiftly and silently. And with purpose.

They were hundreds or thousands of miles away from home, Big Ramona was certain, and yet Destiny acted like she knew exactly what she was doing.

"Just so we're clear, princess. You have any idea where you're going?"

Big Ramona was thinking higher ground, making a stand, setting traps, emptying her cartridges, put a fucking hole in the world or die trying.

"We're going wherever the tracks are taking us to."

"Tracks?! What tracks?" Ramona looked frantically around.

Destiny stopped and smiled, pointing at the trees.

"There's scrapped moss on some of them branches. And the vines are broken. Something came through here. Something heavy, but nimble. It stuck to the trees, you see. Normally, I'd do the same, but we're not properly equipped for that. Plus, you're hurt."

Big Ramona bristled.

"I'm fine! And how do I know _you _know what you're talking about, Pocahontas? Tracks on trees, she says! You sure we wanna be going wherever those monkeys be?"

"No."

"What?!"

Princess was lily fucking white, but Ramona had tried not to hold that against her. A bleached fucking brain on the other hand was a whole different matter entirely.

"Of course I don't want to go where the Preds are. But that's where their ship is going to be. "

"Their ship."

"Yes," Destiny carried on undaunted "we get a ship, we get outta here. Simple."

Big Ramona was above average height, but nowhere near as tall as Destiny. However, when she braced herself and cocked her head just the right way the dividing inches between her and Destiny cowered a bit and miraculously stopped mattering.

"You learn to fly a ship lately and failed to mention it to me? 'Cause I might just be feeling a little hurt if you have."

"It's Pred tech. How hard can it be?"

"Fucking hard, that's how!"

"Hey! Suppose we don't try at all? What then?"

"How about we have them come our way instead of waltzing in on their mothefucking turf? Last time I checked, we didn't get a fucking invite, did we?"

"We dropped from the sky, _didn't_ we?"

Big Ramona was talking to a wall and she strongly felt that it was past time to blast through it.

"Okay, plan B. Say bye-bye, _reina_."

Big Ramona was fast on the draw. Faster than most settlers, actually. She could've taken the shot from the hip, messily, but efficiently. She didn't get the chance, though. Destiny lounged for her, shouting _Duck!_ and Big Ramona's short but eventful life flashed before her eyes in the form of a blue plasma cannon streak that set the jungle around on fire.

It was neatly done too: a perfect circle of flames and battered old trees lapping up tongues of fire caging in on them, burning up the oxygen and part of Destiny's trousered leg.

They rolled over and looked each other in the eye.

"On three."

"Run."

"Three!"

The most astonishing part was how they both started in the same direction. But between Ramona's back and Destiny's leg they didn't get very far before more plasma shots lit up their way. Feeling like so much herded livestock, Big Ramona pushed Destiny aside and turned towards the heat of the fire.

Looking back sent her straight to hell. The jungle was a fiery mouth coming at her with a mighty appetite. Big Ramona pulled hand grenades out of her pockets and made ready to feed the roaring fire up into an inferno.

"…the trees. Aim for the trees!"

It stung, but in the face of death, a previously unknown face of Ramona's otherwise bitchy personality clawed its way to the front. It was somewhat more charitable.

Big Ramona threw a couple of grenades at Destiny and hollered: "You aim for the trees!"

Bitch was taller any way.

Destiny popped the pins and hurled the grenades at the trees above, aiming for the general direction from which the shots had come from. There was a crack and a pop and the blast blew them both away, but the inhuman screech was worth it, even as they scrambled to their feet and ran till their lungs gave out and darkness covered everything.

* * *

She could taste ash on her tongue.

Sweet fucking Jesus she was alive!

Which meant everything hurt and life was an iron fisted bitch pounding away at her head.

Next to her, Destiny was groaning face down in the dirt.

"Des… Des… wake up!"

Destiny gurgled something indecipherable and attempted a move with no luck.

"Get up, we need to move."

The world was a mess around them. The ground was scorched and everything was covered in a greasy blanket of sooth. A charred tree branch, glowing faintly amber in the breeze had them pinned down in the clearing the last of Big Ramona's grenades had remodeled the jungle in before they'd blacked out.

The night was quiet, so much so that Big Ramona had no problems hearing the heavy footsteps easing past the debris and heading their way.

Destiny stirred next to her again.

"You know what? Don't get up."

"Wha'…"

"Shut up. Play dead."

"Ramona…"

"Des, I swear to God, you move an inch…"

An inch was all Destiny got to anyway, because now Ramona could see the Predator clearly by the light of the moon. He was scanning his surroundings, the three dotted ray jumping here and there, but fortunately zoning in on nothing in particular.

_The heat of the fire must be hiding our signatures_, Ramona thought. Settlers knew some things about how Pred vision worked. Early on, Royce had gotten his hands on a visor and they'd experimented with it. Preds could be tricked by mud and such for a while, but it was the sound of the human beating heart that was harder to disguise. They said Riddick had done it once, slowed his heart rate to a stutter and evaded a hunting party, but Ramona was no Riddick lookalike. Nevertheless, she tried to calm down. Breathing came hard though and she almost choked.

The Predator stalked towards the edge of the clearing, a couple of feet from where, Big Ramona could tell, Destiny was struggling with a sneeze. Between gritted teeth, Ramona swore and tried reaching for a gun. The Pred was scanning around again, but this time he looked more intent. Ramona's hand hit a rock, a twig and a burning piece of something before she identified the butt of the gun.

But it was too late.

Three red dots bloomed on her questing hand and Big Ramona would have never been able to hold a gun right had it not been for Destiny's aborted attempts at holding it in.

"_Achoo_!"

The Pred cocked his head and hesitated. It was enough.

Destiny leaped to her feet and casually tossed the an unpinned grenade his way.

The alien almost caught it.

"_Gesundheit¸ _mothefucker!"

And everything went _boom._

* * *

"It was a rather nice shot."

"Thank you."

"You got him right under the…"

"I know. I was there. I shot the stupid thing."

"Didn't think it would be that gory though."

"It was a close shot."

"It almost came out of his ears. I mean, if he had any."

They hadn't stuck around to find that out.

After the grenade had gotten the creature disoriented and Destiny out of the way, Ramona had sprung up and quite suicidally had trained her favourite Walther piece under _its _chin and pulled the trigger.

Repeatedly.

In fact, she was still firing empty when she realized it was the alien blood spattered on her face that had tinted everything in an eerie green light and not the glow of the afterlife.

The Pred was dead.

Soon as Destiny had come around, they'd stripped him of his gear and cleared out.

Now, they were camped next to a rivulet, battered, burned and bruised, but most of all hungry.

Destiny was working on figuring out the medicomp they'd pilfered earlier, while Big Ramona had taken the more practical approach and had meticulously ripped her over shirt into strips of bandages she was planning on using as soon as Des realized the futility of her ways.

"Almost got it!"

What she got was a hiss and a pinch and a medicomp that refused to open.

"Shoot!"

"Come on, Des, you can cuss a whole lot better than that. I heard you out there, talking smack to the Pred", Ramona goaded. "Would've made your mother proud."

"Would've made my mother blush."

Ramona laughed soundlessly. Oh, Destiny's mom. Big Ramona had always thought the first child of Sanctuary had an unnatural and highly risky tendency of viewing the world through rose tinted glasses, but she suspected her mom saw the world through a rose pickled brain. How the woman had managed to survive all these years…

"Dad, mostly. Royce. Riddick, when he could be bothered."

"Did I say that out loud?"

Destiny smiled, but it was as ashen as her face.

"You guys have known each other for a long time, right?"

"Oh, yeah. They were taken together, sort of. Then Sanctuary came to be and my dad practically runs the place now. He's very administrative like that. Riddick usually patrols the edge and the Royces are our neighbors."

"Tough."

"Oh, no, Royce is a real…"

Ramona had not paid much attention, intent as she was on dressing Destiny's burnt leg while she was distracted by the Pred gizmo, but she looked up with eyes full of avid curiosity now.

"I mean, yes, Royce is a real pain in the…ass."

"What about his kids? And his wife?"

"… They're okay. I guess."

"Huh."

Big Ramona finished tying the knot on the bandage and got up. Her grin could've shamed a pride of hyenas.

"Well, you're all set. And who knows? There might be hope for you yet, Des."

Ramona winked and turned to gear up.

"Let's go, princess. If we're lucky, this pissing stream might lead to something better stocked."

They left.

* * *

What the stream lead to was a pond, a muddy shore and a bunch of rowdy piglets.

Destiny's stomach gave an approving growl. As usual, Ramona was rather more emphatic.

"Halle-fucking-luja!"

"Amen!"

"You scoot and call them over, I shoot them down."

"You can't shoot them!"

"Gut them, then."

"…fine. Here piggy, piggy, piggy!"

"Wait! Shutup!"

"Really?!"

"… . Sorry. I thought I heard something."

Big Ramona did hear something.

She heard Destiny scream.

* * *

**A/N: The end? **

**PS: I love you, hayj, please don't kill me.**

**PPS: Hey, HopeK, welcome on board! I always love to hear from you!**


End file.
